People

Graduate students

Natasha Porco

Porco, NatashaI am a first year MSc student at Ryerson and I joined the McPhee and Botelho labs in 2020 as a thesis student. My project looks at uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) filamentation through the activation of the PhoPQ system. During urinary tract infections, this system is activated in UPEC in response to stressful environmental conditions in order to promote survival. The goal of my project is to further understand and characterize filamentation mediated through this regulatory system.

Zaid Shahid

Zaid headshotI am a first year MSc student with a background in immunology. My project looks at examining the impact of restoring ancestral signalling pathways to Shigella flexneri M90T.

Undergraduate students

Rebecca David

Rebecca headshotRebecca is a fifth-year thesis student in the Biomedical Sciences program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Rebecca will be studying nucleoside analogues to identify potential antibacterial activity using model gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. In addition, she will observe whether stable resistance can be selected against these compounds by assessing the behaviour that the bacteria will exhibit.

Sophia Di Clemente

Sophia is a fourth-year undergraduate thesis student in the Biomedical Sciences program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her project investigates the role of regulatory protein EnvY in the PhoPQ two-component signalling system. This system is utilized by Gram-negative bacteria to control virulence and resistance to host-defense peptides. The goal of this project is to understand the mechanism by which EnvY represses the PhoPQ system in Escherichia coli (E. coli).

Shaili Kapadia

Jamie Rice

McPhee Lab Alumni

Reshmi Misir – MSc student – 2021-2023

Tesam Ahmed – undergraduate thesis student 2022-23

Jateya Grbic – – undergraduate thesis student 2022-23

Golsa Makvandi – undergraduate thesis student 2022-23

Youn Hee Cho – PhD student – 2016-2022

Arooj Qamar – MSc student – 2020-2022

Madison Tomlinson – MSc student – 2019-2021

Raymond Huynh – MSc student – 2019-2021

Mayet Awoke – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22

Adelaida Blaxley – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22

Selina Melilo – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22

Shafi Rahman – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22

Julia Novielli – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22

Ingrid Bancolita – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21

Ipar Karaali – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21

Urooj Khan – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21

Jocelyne Mendez-Guzman – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21

Taylor Pham – NSERC USRA – 2021

Adam Khan – MSc student – 2017-2019

Zohra Kassam – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020

Nathaniel Katzenberg – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020

Avery Malpass – NSERC USRA undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020

Reshmi Misir – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020

Deserie Montances – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020

Eesa Chaudhry – visiting international student – 2018-2019

Abuzar Zainul Abedin – NSERC USRA 2017 and 2018; undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019

Disha Acharya – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019

Jasika Bashal – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019

Joy Dallaire – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019

Anna Mapili – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019

Michael Renouf – MSc student – 2016-2018

Sheena Shah – visiting international student – 2017-2018

Rebecca Cabral-Dias – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018 (co-supervised with Dr. Costin Antonescu)

Najih Ismail – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018

Ashuka Kayastha – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018

Shion Song – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018

Riasad Fadle Aziz – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018

Tanuja Sutradhar – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018

Viktoria Weisz – undergraduate volunteer 2016-2017

Mario Vargas MSc – graduate student 2015-2018

Jessica Kociper – undergraduate volunteer 2016-2017

Lauren Phillips – undergraduate thesis student 2016-2017

Veronica Cojocari – undergraduate thesis student 2015-16

Mariya-Nikol Leshchyshyn – undergraduate volunteer 2015-2016

Achjuthan Raveendran – undergraduate summer student 2016